Women homemakers

[RecoveringKinkoid]

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that choice, Blas. You should have every right to pursue that choice without being disrespected for it. I had a professional career for many years, and it was great. I encourage anyone to go for that, if that is what they want.

My point is that there should be no stigma against women who chose what we would call "traditional female gender roles", either. Let's just come right out and say that homemakers are traditionally women (yes, I realize that not all are, but I'm talking traditionally here.). Let's even go so far as to call that "Women's work." Fine.

It just bugs me when women who claim to be feminists, or are rabidly "pro-female" or whatever will then in the same breath put down traditional women's work as unworthy. To me, that is completely losing sight of the whole point of equal rights. Women should have the right to choose whatever they want to do and not be stigmatized for it.

And while I'm standing on the box here, how come when a man chooses traditional male gender roles, then that's pefectly acceptable, but when a woman chooses female gender roles, then she's useless, a parasite, uneducated, and lazy. How equal is it when only traditional male gender rolls are considered worthy? And how much does it suck when OTHER WOMEN perpetrate that horseshit?

[Boozy]

How equal is it when only traditional male gender rolls are considered worthy?

I strongly believe that we value traditional male roles more strongly in the West because we feel the need to quantify everything with a price tag. In a so-called "traditional" family where the man works and the woman stays home, only the man's role is assigned a dollar value. He makes a salary. The woman does not. That doesn't mean she's not productive, or that she's not providing necessary services for her family and society. But she "doesn't make any money", so it's considered worthless.

I think this issue goes so far beyond gender roles and sexual equality. It's about what we value.

[DesignFox]

I strongly believe that we value traditional male roles more strongly in the West because we feel the need to quantify everything with a price tag. In a so-called "traditional" family where the man works and the woman stays home, only the man's role is assigned a dollar value. He makes a salary. The woman does not. That doesn't mean she's not productive, or that she's not providing necessary services for her family and society. But she "doesn't make any money", so it's considered worthless.

I think this issue goes so far beyond gender roles and sexual equality. It's about what we value.

This. A Big THIS.

Honestly, I'm all about women choosing whatever they want to do. Be it a stay at home mom, or a breadwinner, or a combination of both. I come from a household where for a long time, Mom was the breadwinner. Sure, my Dad had his work (random jobs with various companies, plus his own home business- which is now a full blown automotive repair shop), but he was the primary "home" care-taker.

I distinctly remember his friends calling him "Mr. Mom" and a great shirt he had that said, "I'm no bum, my wife works!"

Anyway, back to the point.

The price-tag thing. I struggled with this argument with my Ex a lot. I mean, A LOT. To him, I was worthless because I made less money than he did. In his eyes, I am not an independent person, because I cannot afford all my hobbies, a roof over my head, and pay all my bills on one salary. His beef with me, was that if it wasn't for the fact that I lived with HIM, I would not be able to live apart from my family. He was not interested in forming a partnership, because since I couldn't contribute an equal "share" of the monetary expenses, I was simply a leech. (nevermind that I desperately tried to keep the house clean, do laundry or go shopping, etc. if I tried, it was never good enough, and when I didn't do it, then I was lazy...arg!) Also, nevermind the fact that I paid him *rent* AND never asked for a single dime for any of my personal expenses.

When I brought up friends in similar positions- one married couple with the woman making money equal to mine, his claim was always that their situation was "different." How, I can't fathom, considering that couple seemed to work together just dandy despite the difference in income levels. AND being in the profession they were, MANY MANY MANY of the women in that group were stay at home mothers. They had no career. They had absolutely zero need to go to work. These guys make so much money it would make a person puke!

I asked him if those women were "losers" and his excuse was that they had children. So I asked him about our other friends who up until very recently didn't have any children, and actually, were not prepared for the first one (the woman went off her pills anticipating it to take at least a year before she would become pregnant- so much her doctor knew!) and did that make his wife a "loser" because she hadn't worked since they had gotten married.

Well, she did scrapbooking on the side. And somehow that made her different.

I dunno. He was a jerkface.

Anyway, so the attitude is prevalent. It is sad. And both women and men are culprits of that attitude. It's because of our gimme attitude and attaching a monetary value to everything that stay at home mothers or wives, and people like me who don't mind slogging through life peacefully near the middle of the ladder, get treated like dirt.

[Peppergirl]

I have to play devil's advocate for this one.

You? Color me shocked!

[anriana]

I'm glad I was able to provide everyone an excuse to get up on a soapbox and make sarcastic speeches because I questioned someone said it was quite difficult for her to get a college education and then listed goals that don't require a college education!



And an example of when more education is bad : all of the female doctors who go to med school, work for a few years, and then quit the medical profession to raise a family, although I guess I'm a bad woman for making this example.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I'm glad I was able to provide everyone an excuse to get up on a soapbox and make sarcastic speeches because I questioned someone said it was quite difficult for her to get a college education and then listed goals that don't require a college education!


.

Ah. Of course you did. How silly of me to not realize that you were only trying to offer a helpful bit of advice. In my supreme ignorance and lack of understanding, I actually thought you were trying to make a sarcastic, hurtful dig. What a goose I am.

[JuniorMintz]

I'm glad I was able to provide everyone an excuse to get up on a soapbox and make sarcastic speeches because I questioned someone said it was quite difficult for her to get a college education and then listed goals that don't require a college education!

Honestly, you don't see why I might be a little offended at the implication that because I'd like to spend some of my life as a stay at home wife and mom, that I must be a simpleton who shouldn't want or need anything beyond what they learned in high school?

You're right, I don't *have* to finish school to clean my house, but I *want* to, and I promise I'll have the same smile on my face when I'm cleaning as I will when I'm graduating college and teaching a class of my own. I have lots of hobbies and ambitions, and they keep me happy (occasional mopey moments aside). To my friends who stay home and to those who prefer their careers, I would hope that everyone here is doing (or trying to do) what makes them feel fulfilled. (And if sitting around and passing judgement on others is what makes one feel fulfilled, then I feel sorry for them.)

Now if you'd like a soapbox of you're own, I'd be happy to give you the one my mop fluid comes in when I'm done using it.

[JuniorMintz]

Ah. Of course you did. How silly of me to not realize that you were only trying to offer a helpful bit of advice. In my supreme ignorance and lack of understanding, I actually thought you were trying to make a sarcastic, hurtful dig. What a goose I am.

You really are an ignorant goose. If only you were educated...

[Boozy]

Okay, I think everyone needs to settle down. It's difficult for many of us to discuss this topic since it involves personal choices that we have made for ourselves (or are hoping to make). But that does not mean we can lose our heads.

A good rule of thumb: If you're taking the debate too much to heart, take a step back before posting. We don't make a habit of moderating the tone people choose to take, but I've warned people away from using too much sarcasm before. Sarcasm tends to escalate things by making acceptable arguments sound too personal. So watch out for this.

Thanks guys.

[anriana]

If you still want to call me June Cleaver for this, fine. Still, it's pretty arrogant to assume that my (or Boozy, or Kinkoid, or IDrinkARum, or my mum, or my sister in law, or any of the other thousands of SAHM's) desire to stay home and care for my household makes me lazy or somehow less of a person.

June Cleaver isn't known for being arrogant or "less of a person" so what is the point of this statement?

But I guess you're right, I should save my time and money since I'd be just as happy scrubbing floors anyway.

That's what you said so why are you upset someone quoted it?

I want to spend as much time at home as possible raising my children so I MUST not have any personal ambition, right?

When you make a post about all the things you want in life and all of them involve future children and none of them involved personal ambition, yes, that is a perfectly rational conclusion to draw.

I didn't know that wanting to stay home with my family for as long as possible made me an embarrassment to females everywhere, but thanks for letting me know.

This, however, is not a rational conclusion or reading of my statement.

Well, that's nice. So nice to see women supporting other women's choices and ambitions.

I am not obligated to support everyone else who has a vagina simply because we have matching bodyparts. I am also confused as to why someone would make a statement like that and then launch into a lecture on feminism.

You know, here's what a lot of women, particularly young women, forget: Back in the bad old days, when women had to fight for every single bit of respect they got, they weren't fighting just so they could go out and work in an office every day. They weren't lobbying and protesting and doing jail time so they could stop being women. What they were doing was trying to earn for themselves the opportunity to make choices and garner respect for same that any human being should be able to expect.

Perhaps you're the one who needs a patronizing history lesson? The book that kicked off the modern feminist movement was written to show that educated SAHMs were extrememly depressed, shot up horse tranquilizers all day, suffocated their children (figuratively), and deprived their country of 50% of it's potential.

They weren't lobbying and protesting and doing jail time so they could stop being women.

What are you trying to imply here?

It just bugs me when women who claim to be feminists, or are rabidly "pro-female" or whatever will then in the same breath put down traditional women's work as unworthy. To me, that is completely losing sight of the whole point of equal rights. Women should have the right to choose whatever they want to do and not be stigmatized for it.

If someone told me they wanted to dismember animals then whined about how hard it was go to go to college I would ask them why they were going to college.
If someone told me they wanted to be a daycare worker then whined about how hard it was go to go to college I would ask them why they were going to college.
If someone told me they wanted to work in housekeeping then whined about how hard it was go to go to college I would ask them why they were going to college.
If someone told me they wanted to be a garbage collector then whined about how hard it was go to go to college I would ask them why they were going to college.

I also wouldn't respect any of their jobs. Why should I? Every career or lack thereof is not automatically entitled to respect simply because someone is doing it. Nor is a job entitled to respect from me because I am a woman and it is traditionally done by women. That is completely unfeminist.

(And if sitting around and passing judgement on others is what makes one feel fulfilled, then I feel sorry for them.)

If sitting around and being snide to people who disagree with one on the internet is what makes someone feel fulfilled, then I feel sorry for them.

[IDrinkaRum]

One of the local universities (Stratford University to be precise) gives 1 day cooking seminars(which cost $60/seminar)! They're given on Saturdays. They have cooking basics Levels 1, 2, and 3 starting in September. I've already cleared it with hubs (we do "family time" on the weekends and/or cleaning on the weekends - not that I had to ask him for the $$ to do the class). that I can sign up for the classes. I'm too excited about it! Level 1 teaches me various ways of chopping foods up for cooking. (I'm hoping they show me a new way of chopping onions without having an attack of the crying jags).

[JuniorMintz]

June Cleaver isn't known for being arrogant or "less of a person" so what is the point of this statement?

June Cleaver may not be arrogant, but people who look down on SAHMs and call them that to try and be hurtful (a LOT of people have talked shit about my mom, and June Cleaver/Sally Homemaker/Martha Stewart are names that come up a lot) are extremely arrogant.

When you make a post about all the things you want in life and all of them involve future children and none of them involved personal ambition, yes, that is a perfectly rational conclusion to draw.

My home and my children ARE personal ambitions of mine. I'm allowed to have more than two.

This, however, is not a rational conclusion or reading of my statement.

My apologies, blame my lack of education.

If someone told me they wanted to dismember animals then whined about how hard it was go to go to college I would ask them why they were going to college.
If someone told me they wanted to be a daycare worker then whined about how hard it was go to go to college I would ask them why they were going to college.
If someone told me they wanted to work in housekeeping then whined about how hard it was go to go to college I would ask them why they were going to college.
If someone told me they wanted to be a garbage collector then whined about how hard it was go to go to college I would ask them why they were going to college.

I would REALLY like to know why you are so fixated on the small comment that I made about "CAL Grants aren't available anymore blah blah so now I'm saving for school and a house"- My only point in even saying that was that it was going to be another year or so before I could do both. I NEVER said that going to college was hard or that it wasn't worth doing.

I also wouldn't respect any of their jobs. Why should I? Every career or lack thereof is not automatically entitled to respect simply because someone is doing it. Nor is a job entitled to respect from me because I am a woman and it is traditionally done by women. That is completely unfeminist.

Every one of those jobs that you mentioned, while maybe not your own personal career choice, requires an honest days work, and since you don't respect them, at the very least the people who hold these jobs don't deserve your *disrespect*. Even Raps did his time "dismembering animals" (as you put it) for a living.

I'd like to know why you have no respect for daycare workers, garbage men, and the like, yet spend quite a bit of your personal time on a web site designed to allow members of the service industry to log on and vent about their lives. You REALLY seem to hate what you perceive as whining, at least when you felt it was coming from me.

If sitting around and being snide to people who disagree with one on the internet is what makes someone feel fulfilled, then I feel sorry for them.

Great, we feel sorry for each other. I'll make a note of it.

[Boozy]

Turns out this topic is a bit too close to the bone for reasonable discussion.

I'm closing this one.